Nowruz celebration

           Northeastern Illinois University student Tahmina Herewaie holds the Afghan flag,
                  joined by other Afghan Refugee Transition Program scholarship students.

     The upside of my job is that I get to go interesting places. The downside is that when at those places, I am always working. At some level. Since literally any experience can be captured, retained, understood, synthesized, and shared with others, I need to be always on, listening, taking notes, looking around, processing. Or at the very least the pilot light has to be lit, waiting, ready to leap into action.
     It gets tiring. Sometimes you want to stop, put your pen down, shut your brain off, and live. Like last Thursday night. The Afghan sisters whom I wrote about earlier this month, doing their paperwork at a Loop law firm invited me to attend a celebration of Nowruz — the Persian New Year observed by communities from Albania to Iran— at their school, Northeastern Illinois University. 

      It didn't seem a particularly compelling story — Students Celebrate Holiday With Food. But they invited me. It seemed to mean something to them, and to me too, being invited somewhere, not by an organization, but by a person. So I said I'd go, representing the newspaper at an event held by a growing ethnic community. Colorful Afghan dress was involved, so I assigned a photographer.
     I asked my wife to come along — she is an alumnus of NEIU and hadn't been back since she graduated, decades ago. She agreed. 

     In researching what I was going to — "Nowruz" means "New Day" in Persian and falls on the spring equinox — I came upon a video from Disney, of Mickey Mouse explaining Nowruz. No wonder the Republicans are so mad at Disney, treating other people's faiths as if they have value too.

     Dinner was late — after 7, because it is Ramadan, and devout Muslims can't eat until after sundown. It can be a struggle — someone I was talking to checked his watch as we spoke, said something about Ramadan and bolted for the buffet table. My wife urged me to go up and eat. "I'm not pushing ahead of people who've been fasting all day," I said, keeping my seat, waiting for everybody else to get up first. 

     The grub was worth the wait — succulent chicken kebabs and rice, Jerusalem salad and pita bread, custard and cookies and haft mewa, a traditional Nowruz dessert of nuts and fruit in rose water. 
     Several NEIU officials said hello. Handshakes and introductions. I briefly sat down next to a sociology professor, here to support a student in his class. We talked, but nothing noteworthy came of it. There was music, and poetry, some in English, some in Dari. There was a dramatic moment when some of the young women present, dressed in flowing Afghan outfits, marched in waving an Afghan flag to a stirring patriotic song, Watan Ishq Tu Iftikharm ("Love of my homeland is my pride") and I slipped over, knelt down, took a couple photos.

    Back at the table, taking in general vibe. listening to poetry in a language I don't understand, I had a moment to reflect, yet again, how everybody is pretty much the same: glad to be in this country but proud of where they, or their parents or grandparents, came from. And that thing right wingers are so terrified of — a diverse nation welcoming all sorts of people who get to live their lives, even if those lives are markedly different than the general flow— is a very desirable dynamic and an economic necessity to boot. These red staters are afraid of the very thing that actually does make American great.
     After 90 minutes my wife noted it was getting late, and I went over to offer my thanks and goodbye to one of the sisters, who was so surprised I was leaving that I worried that I'd committed some kind of gaffe. Then she asked when I would be writing something about Nowruz, and I paused. "Never," caught in my throat. But that lit the fuse. Honestly, I didn't think about it again until yesterday, looking through my photos for something to write about today, and saw the shot above of that statuesque young woman waving a flag, and said to myself, "Heck, maybe I could put a few words together; it is the New Year, after all. Why not welcome it in a spirit of generosity?"